Interactive wide-angle video server

1. A system for remotely viewing wide-angle video, comprising:

a server at a first location receiving distorted wide-angle video images from one or more sources;

a client at a remote second location requesting from said server one or more rectangular distorted segments overlapped by a client-selected distorted portion within and smaller than a distorted wide-angle video image from a specified source, while specifying resolution of said overlapped distorted segments;

wherein said server outputs said overlapped distorted segments at said specified resolution; and

wherein said client receives said overlapped segments and generates a virtual camera view with reduced distortion by transforming said overlapped segments.

2. A system as recited in claim 1 wherein said client is capable of generating multiple virtual camera views by requesting segments overlapped by multiple portions of one or more wide-angle images.

3. A system as recited in claim 1 wherein said server is capable of serving multiple clients each requesting separate segments.

4. A system as recited in claim 1 wherein said transformation is based on 3D graphics techniques, using texture-mapping for stereographic projection or linear perspective projection or cylindrical projection.

5. A system as recited in claim 1 wherein said transformation is based on tabular distortion-correction.

6. A system as recited in claim 1 wherein said transformation is based on 2D transform mapping using orthogonal transform algorithms.

7. A system as recited in claim 1 wherein said client generates said virtual camera view with view coordinates based on a pan and/or tilt and/or zoom value derived from local device input such as a mouse or a joy stick.

8. A system as recited in claim 7 wherein said virtual camera view coordinates are sent from said server together with portion of a wide-angle video image and said client generates virtual camera view based on received information.

9. A system as recited in claim 1 wherein said request is based on a pan and/or tilt and/or zoom and/or field-of-view value corresponding to virtual camera view coordinates, and said server computes corresponding portion.

10. A system as recited in claim 1 wherein said server output response to said requests and corresponding virtual camera view generation at the client occurs in approximately real-time.

11. A system as recited in claim 1 wherein said server continues sending segments to a client corresponding to last request to provide approximate real-time video viewing at said client.

12. A system as recited in claim 1 wherein said portion comprises of a plurality of segments.

13. A system as recited in claim 12 wherein said segment generation is based on segmenting said wide-angle image by a regular grid.

14. A system as recited in claim 13 wherein said request is based on a binary image representing said grid.

15. A method for remotely viewing wide-angle video, comprising the steps of:

outputting from a first location, with at least one specified resolution, at least one rectangular distorted segment overlapped by at least one portion within and smaller than a distorted wide-angle video image, along with information which at least partially describes the distortion of said segment, in response to a request from a second location which specifies said segment and said specified resolution; and

receiving at a second location said segment and said information, and generating at least one corresponding distortion-alleviated view from said segment using said information.

16. A method as recited in claim 15 wherein said information includes a table describing the properties of the device used to capture said wide-angle video.

17. A method for remotely viewing wide-angle video comprising the steps of:

outputting from a first location, with a specified resolution, one or more rectangular distorted uncorrected segments overlapped by a distorted uncorrected portion within and smaller than a distorted wide-angle video image, in response to a request from a second location which identifies at least some positional information for said distorted uncorrected portion;

wherein said request specifies resolution of said distorted uncorrected segments.

18. A method as recited in claim 17 wherein said first location services multiple remote locations.

19. A method as recited in claim 17 wherein said second location outputs positional information for multiple portions from one or more wide-angle-video images.

20. A method as recited in claim 17 wherein said output from said second location is based on a pan and/or tilt and/or zoom and/or field-of-view value(s) derived from local device input.